


Forfeit Games

by FlytsOfAngels



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age 2
Genre: F/M, Smut, Some story, more smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 06:35:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15261528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlytsOfAngels/pseuds/FlytsOfAngels
Summary: Isabela is intrigued by the elf who has become part of their band of warriors, the one with the snow-capped head and the strange markings over his body.  He says he never gambles, but he's been playing cards with her and Hawke's other friends all night.  Are there other wagers that she could make with him that might have even more fun and exciting consequences?____________________________________The starting place for this story is a conversation you can hear on the streets of Lowtown:Isabela:  That night … I can’t stop thinking about it.Fenris:   Well, then I’ll see you later.Isabela:  That was direct.Fenris:   I thought I’d get straight to the point.  Were you expecting flowers or something?Isabela:  Don’t be absurd.Fenris:  Then I’ll see you tonight.__________________________________Other Dragon Age stories available.  Comments always welcome ...





	1. An Opening Gambit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A night of gambling at the Hanged Man, and Isabela wonders about more than whether her hand is good enough to take the pot.

Isabela looked down at her cards and considered her hand again. It wasn’t a particularly great hand, in fact, in normal circumstances, she wouldn’t even call it good. But everyone else had already folded, which left her and the snow-haired elf with the strange tattoos. Studying his face, she tried to determine whether she had the upper hand in this situation, but the fringe of his locks hung down into his eyes, making it nearly impossible for her to guess what he was thinking. In the hopes of getting a better reading of his potential play, she reached up to fiddle with one of the golden discs that was attached to the necklace that she wore around her throat, expecting that the elf would take it as a tell. Whether it would reveal to him the truth or not … that was another question.

“Rivaini, what exactly do you think you’re doing?” Varric Tethras asked, using his nickname for her and stretching his arms up over his head and flexing his fingers to relieve some imagined stiffness.

“Well, I thought I was playing cards with people who had sovereigns to lose.” She smiled slyly over at Hawke, who was chatting in low whispers with Merrill, a wispy little elf who seemed to have caught the man’s attention. He looked up briefly and shrugged, as if to admit that he had other things on his mind, and she turned back to the card table. If he was more interested in flat-chested, narrow-hipped waifs, then he could fish in those waters. She would take her ample bosom and other luscious curves and find someone who could truly appreciate them.

Not necessarily here. In the back rooms of the Hanged Man tavern. But somewhere in Kirkwall.

“Are we playing cards or not?” the other elf, Fenris, asked her, barely moving when he reached out to take the bottle beside his elbow. When he had it firmly in his grasp, he leaned away from the table and downed nearly half of the contents. Isabela had to restrain her urge to whistle her appreciation, and she returned to her cards.

“Of course we are,” she replied, waving her hand over the collection of coin that was tossed haphazardly across the table. “Do you really think that I’d let all of this just lie here, forgotten? I’m a much better shepherd than that, and I think it’s probably time for me to lead these poor, lost, golden creatures home.”

“You’re a pirate, Isabela,” Aveline, candidate for the captain of the guards in Kirkwall said to her. “Not a shepherd. You’d be just as likely to take all your pretty golden trinkets and drown them in the Waking Sea.”

Isabela smiled wryly and shook her head. The red-headed woman hadn’t bothered to join their game, as much as Varric had encouraged her to loosen the iron grip that she kept on her moral superiority, and it made Isabela wonder why she was here at all. If you can’t let your hair down in a place like the Hanged Man, why visit? Honestly, except for the stories that Varric had been spinning for them most of the night, the only thing that had managed to keep Isabela’s attention was the cards.

And that other elf. The snow-haired one.

Now there … that was a promising little piece that a pirate might be able to slip easily into her pocket. Or her bed. Either one would do just fine.

But first … winning the hand. She fingered the disc on her necklace again and tossed another sovereign into the center of the table. Rolling in a drunken kind of arc, it finally bumped into its fellows and settled at an angle against two other pieces of gold. The elf looked over at her from under the fall of his hair, and she felt a little shiver of anticipation race down her spine. There was something in those eyes … something hurt and lost and angry. All of which were emotions that she had related to at some point in her life.

Not now, of course. She’d lived through too many years, too many crews, too many men to ever feel lost again. She would also admit that it was especially hard to feel lost when you were the one who was firmly at the helm, which applied to the hurts, too. Because she was the one who chose whom and where and — most importantly of all — when to leave. Hurt was too tightly in her control for anyone else to ever be able to steer it toward her.

But the anger …

Isabela could readily admit that she had made more than one bad decision because her temper had gotten the best of her. In fact, she might even be stuck here in Kirkwall because of something like anger or outrage, but the only thing she could do now was to try to earn enough gold to buy herself a new ship and finally leave the land behind. Unfortunately, it was proving more difficult than she had anticipated, even with the help of Hawke and this group of misfit warriors that he had gathered around him. Their financial rewards had been adequate, although they had yet to fill her coffers enough so that she could find herself a ship, but that would come, she was certain.

But the snow-haired elf was talking, and the middle of a card game — with so much coin on the line — was no time to be considering whether or not she would ever be able to escape back to the sea. She looked over at him and watched while he shifted his cards among each other in his hand again.

“I probably shouldn’t have ever started this game,” he was saying, finally laying his cards facedown on the table in front of him. “I haven’t typically gambled in the past, and I’m not sure I should have started tonight.”

“It’s a little late for that now, Broody,” the dwarf said, picking up his tankard and draining it rapidly. “That’s some of your own gold there on the table, and all Isabela’s going to do with it is outfit her next ship.”

“I have to have a ship first before I can outfit it,” Isabela complained. “And this chitchat isn’t helping me get any closer to solving that problem.”

“Then call the elf’s bet,” Varric suggested. “We’ll start a new hand and …”

“Not for me,” Aveline said, rising from her place at the table. “I’ve got duty in the morning.”

Varric slipped from his chair a moment later. “Come on, Red. I’ve promised the innkeeper that I’ll walk you to the door from now on, just to guarantee that you don’t discover that you’re required to enforce any laws on your way out.”

“That’s not at all necessary,” the guard captain candidate started to complain, her voice and the dwarf’s mingling with the background murmur of the tavern while they walked toward the entrance to the Hanged Man. Isabela looked over at Fenris, lifting a coin in her fingers until Hawke and Merrill suddenly rose from their side of the table.

“We’ll be going, too,” Hawke said, holding the back of the elven mage’s chair so that she could rise more easily. While Isabela watched the girl stand, she noticed the blush that rushed up into her pale cheeks and the way that she tucked one of the many short braids in her hair back behind the long edge of one of her ears. Hawke didn’t bother to look back at them, adjusting his long stride to stay in step with the little elf, and they were quickly lost to Isabela’s sight by the edge of the wall.

Fenris made as if to rise from his chair, too, but Isabela stopped his motion with a stern look. But then she smiled slyly at him and slipped one hip up on the table, reaching out for the pile of coin in the center. “Guess that means that I win,” she crowed. “One more step …”

“Not so fast,” Fenris said. But instead of reaching for his cards, he stood and grasped the long shaft of the halberd that was leaning against the wall. After he had slipped it over his shoulder, Isabela heard the weapon _click_ into its holder. Then he reached down for his cards.

“You know,” she said in a teasing way, “I’ve been admiring the way you handle yourself when we’re out with Hawke. It takes experience and expert technique to master the kind of shaft that you’ve got there.”

Fenris looked up from the table and met her eyes, drawing his black eyebrows together. Idly turning a coin between her fingers, she allowed him to study her face while she stared back at him. But too much time passed, and she suddenly was overwhelmed by the urge to look away. Damn him, she thought, he just might be able to equal her after all.

Picking up his cards from the table, the snow-haired elf looked at them again and then back up at her. “Honestly, Isabela,” he said in his low, smoky voice, “it’s always been more important to me to know when and where to sheathe my shaft. And will you ask Varric to hold onto my winnings for me? I’ll see him tomorrow.”

With that, he tossed his cards into the center of the table and walked out the door and into the tavern. Isabela watched him go and then sagged down into her chair. The next moment, she started laughing and didn’t stop until the dwarf walked back into the room.


	2. Setting the Wager

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabela decides that wagering for sovereigns is just not what she had in mind for Fenris.

“So — you’re trying to tell us that you’d never played diamondback until last night,” Varric was saying to the snow-haired elf, his voice curiously amazed. Isabela listened from her position on the dwarf’s other side, equally as interested in how she had lost to the warrior last evening. They continued following Hawke while he strode through the streets of the seedier parts of Kirkwall’s Lowtown, intent on some mission that he had been given that morning.

“You’ve never gambled before? Not in all your time in Tevinter or with the Fog Warriors?” Varric’s voice was tinged by shock, but Isabela was more than willing to believe that luck was a fickle mistress who could smile on anyone gathered around a card table at any moment. Looking over the dwarf’s head, she met Fenris’s gaze, noting how his eyes appeared only a shade or two lighter than the gold that he had won off her last night. All that she had gained, gone in a blink of those golden eyes, forcing her to take a step away from her ship and her escape.

Damn him, she thought, wondering idly whether there might be some other kind of revenge that she could take on him that would be even more satisfying than simply getting her sovereigns back. Something more … personal. More designed to fulfill her most basic needs of the moment …

“I never said that I didn’t gamble,” Fenris replied to Varric’s questions. “I simply hadn’t played diamondback before. Actually, I hadn’t gambled with games of chance.”

“No games of chance? Wicked Grace? Dice? Lots?”

Isabela saw the elf shake his head. “Seems awfully lucky for a first go at cards, but I’ve seen it happen,” she said. “Luck is a capricious little bitch in the best of circumstances, but I still dance to her tune as often as I can. There’s nothing like the thrill of relieving a fellow of those things that he values most of all. Coin, property, jewels of all kinds.”

“Isabela!” Varric gasped in faked outrage. “You’d steal a man’s family jewels just to spite him! I’m shocked.”

Isabela laughed softly. “You have to admit, though, that most men are so much better without them. The amount of time they waste, having them polished, making certain that they’re adequately protected …”

Fenris stuttered to a stop, and Isabela looked back at him. Smiling to herself, she continued after Hawke, not wanting him to face whatever was waiting for them alone. Varric kept pace beside her, glancing over his shoulder at the elf who was staring after them.

“I think we broke him,” the dwarf said. “And after such a short time. I had hoped that he would be up to the challenge, but it seems that I overestimated his … er, flexibility? He doesn’t really seem at all used to company.”

“Not everyone has the kind of a silver tongue that you have, Varric,” she replied. “At least when it comes to conversation.”

“No matter how you may tease me, Rivaini, I refuse to employ my tongue for anything other than conversation when I’m anywhere near you.”

The dwarf suddenly moved forward, reaching over his shoulder to liberate his crossbow, Bianca, from its holder and rushing to where Hawke was already surrounded by a little circle of very angry and violent looking characters. Isabela hurried after him, pulling her daggers into her fists and slipping silently up behind one of the attackers. With a short motion, she slammed the blade into one back and slid the other across her target’s throat. While the man’s corpse slipped to the ground, she moved on, methodically eliminating anyone who came within range of her knives, dancing among the attackers and deftly avoiding both Hawke’s sword and shield and Fenris’s halberd.

“That’s another one for me, Hawke!” Varric shouted, raising his crossbow and firing at a man who was trying to escape down a branching alleyway. “How many have you got?”

Within a few minutes, they had dispatched the entire crew, and Isabela moved to one of the bodies, squatting beside it and using the cloth of the man’s coat to wipe her blades clean. Sliding her knives into their braces over her shoulder, she listened with only half an ear to the dwarf’s banter with their group leader, not at all surprised at how competitive Varric could be. After all, he was the one who regularly invited all of them over to his suite of rooms in the Hanged Man; he was the one who suggested the games; he set the wagers …

She stilled suddenly, a kind of wicked glee filling her body. Looking up, she saw Fenris coming back from hunting down another little group of attackers who had decided that discretion might be the only thing that kept them alive. Picking up the edge of the jacket that she had dropped so that she could sheathe her weapons, she tried to get his attention.

“Come along, then,” she suggested, tugging at the cloth in order to free more of it from under the corpse beside her. “Let’s get your weapon cleaned up. No one likes a crusty blade. Does something to the edge, I think.”

He frowned at her. “You’re only talking about my halberd now, aren’t you?” Fenris asked, tossing his head so that the snowy fall of his hair settled away from his eyes for a moment. Only a moment. And then it was back, veiling his gaze.

“For now,” Isabela replied. When he stepped closer and dropped the blade of his weapon to a point just above the corpse beside her, she dragged the cloth of the man’s coat around and along the metal, smearing the blood and other bits of humanity down and away from the place where the blade attached to the hardwood haft of the weapon. It took her a couple of long, patient strokes, but eventually the majority of the metal was clean.

“I can maintain my own weapon,” Fenris commented dryly.

Dropping the corner of the coat, she replied, “But it can be so much nicer when you have someone around who’s willing to lend a hand.”

“And we’re back in the gutter,” he complained, but she could hear the tinge of humor in his voice. She watched him glance over at Hawke and Varric, who had both already started off toward some goal that wasn’t at all clear to her. Sighing, she rose and sauntered after them, and Fenris fell into step beside her.

“So last night,” she said, “you said that you hadn’t played games of chance before, but you didn’t say that you hadn’t gambled. I assume you made bets with other associates. Maybe about your battles?”

“Why would you say that?”

“It was something Varric said to Hawke,” she explained. “He seemed to be tallying his kills, and I wondered …” Isabela let her thought trail away, hoping that she had said enough for the elf to understand what she was asking without actually saying it.

Because if he did, it might prove that they were more of a like mind than she had expected.

Fenris grunted. “I’ve made those kinds of wagers in the past.”

“So not so much a gambler as a man who’s willing to risk on his own skill.” Isabela glanced over at him, making quick calculations in her head. The elf’s halberd was powerful, but that was what made it slow. Certainly slower than her knives could be. Which might give her an edge … “That sounds like the kind of game that I would enjoy,” she purred suggestively. “What do you say, Fenris? Shall we start our own little game of chance?”

The elf stopped and crossed his arms on his chest, considering her with a steady gaze. Luckily for them both, Hawke had paused to talk to one of the vendors in Lowtown, giving her and Fenris a few moments when they could speak to each other alone. She smiled over at him and tucked one fist against her hip, thrusting it out to the side while she waited for his decision.

“What are you suggesting, Isabela? Can we define our terms here?”

She wanted to crow in excitement, feeling herself step even closer to some kind of pleasant entanglement with the elf. “What I’m thinking is this: we track our kills — finishing blows only, no matter who else is involved in the fight. And only battles that both of us are involved in, so that we can verify each other’s achievements. The person with the most finishing blows at the end of the day wins.”

“A day? That seems a little demanding, don’t you think?”

Isabela shrugged. “A week, then. Or a month.” Looking over at Hawke, she sighed and said, “I have the feeling we’re going to be spending a lot of time in battle in the coming year, which will give us more than ample opportunity to compare our exploits. And fulfill our wagers, of course.”

Shaking his head, the elf suggested, “Is there a reason I can trust you in this process? You _are_ a pirate after all.”

“I am, but I would never cheat on a wager that I’d shaken hands to seal. You can trust me, Fenris, as much as that’s difficult for you to believe. I’m not like any other woman. Seas! I’m probably not like any other human that you’ve ever interacted with.” Isabela smiled in a way that she hoped was reassuring, but Fenris only stood there, staring at her in stony silence.

“I’ve met too many people who told me that they were one kind of person but ended up being like everyone else,” the elf admitted slowly, his eyes locked to hers. “But I’m at least willing to hear the rest of your terms.”

“The rest?” she asked, trying to sound innocent and not at all eager to have their bet sealed.

“What are the stakes? I’m nearly certain that you’re not interested in my gold, and I’m at a loss to understand what else I might have to offer.”

Isabela smiled slyly. “Underestimating yourself again, are we? Would it surprise you to hear that I can think of any number of ways that you can be useful to me? Very _personal_ ways.”

She caught the hint of surprise that rushed across Fenris’s face and was just as quickly hidden again. Looking over at Hawke, he studied the negotiations that seemed to be concluding and made his decision. “Define your terms, pirate,” he said in a low growl that sent shivers of heat through her. She smiled in response and stepped closer so that she could whisper in his long, knife blade of an ear.

“One month of battles. At the end, we compare and decide who is the winner.”

“And then?” he asked, and Isabela was certain that she had heard a little catch in his voice.

“And then the winner has one day to use the loser as she or he pleases. Nothing illegal, of course, and there have to be reasonable limits. But it’s for the winner to decide. And then, if we’re both willing, we can continue the bet for another month.” Stepping back, she extended her hand. “What do you say, my lovely? Shall we play this little game together?”

Fenris returned her gaze for a long moment, and she was afraid that — like so many other times in her recent past — she had proven to be much, much too much for one man to handle. So when he clasped her hand in return, she nearly jumped in surprise.

“I accept,” he said, and shook her hand firmly.


	3. Tallying the Score

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first results are in ...

“Is someone going to tell me what all these numbers are that I’ve been tracking for the last month?” Varric complained, pulling a piece of parchment out from among the stack of correspondence and maps that he had piled on a table on one side of his sitting room. “I understand that I’m a disgraced member of a merchant’s guild, but that doesn’t mean that I’m anyone’s accountant. Or don’t either of you have parchment lying around your own rooms?”

“Parchment?” Isabela exclaimed, feeling a little surge of anticipation race through her. Today, after a month of battling any number of enemies with Hawke and Varric and Merrill and Aveline and Anders, she and Fenris were about to learn who had come out — should she say it, even to herself? Yes, she would: who had come out _on top_ in their little side wager. The thought of being in what was often described as the dominant position was delicious to her, and she savored the picture that her imagination created. “What would I do with parchment, Varric? Except wipe my …”

“Just hand over the tallies,” Fenris interrupted, and Isabela thought that she heard a hint of eagerness in his voice, too. “Or read them to us. Either one will do just as well.”

“You _are_ willing to continue doing this for us, aren’t you, Varric?” Isabela asked, maybe to forestall the news that they were about to receive. After all, if she had lost, she was putting herself in Fenris’s hands for an entire day. Seas knew what he would do with her. That was what had made the last month so exciting. “We might renew our … contract with each other, and we’ll need your skills to continue keeping a record.”

Varric looked between them and then turned the piece of paper he was holding facedown on the table. “If you tell me. Maker’s Breath, you two have been like demons in the last month. I can barely get a shot off before every opponent on the battlefield has a halberd slash or a knife blade buried to the hilt in his back. You’d think the two of you had bet …” He stopped and studied the two of them again, looking back and forth between their faces as if he could discover the answer simply by staring at them long enough. Glancing over at Fenris, she raised one eyebrow and saw him shrug in response.

“Okay, Varric,” she agreed, if only so that she could hear their tallies. “Fenris and I have a bet between us, based on death blows that we deal in our battles. Those are our results for the month, and depending on the numbers, one of us will have won the wager.”

“Intriguing,” the dwarf said, rolling the word around his mouth as if it was a taste of truly fine dwarven ale. “Is there a reason that you didn’t invite anyone else to join in on this little adventure of yours?”

Isabela exchanged a glance with Fenris again and continued her explanation. “There isn’t any coin involved. We’ve a very particular design for the forfeit that will be received, and we weren’t at all certain that anyone else would like to play.”

“I like a good wager as much as the next dwarf,” Varric said in response, but then his eyes narrowed. “But if the two of you are involved, I might have to admit that you made the correct decision. On the other hand, I _do_ have to know. What’s the prize of this bet? And why would you want to continue it beyond this first tally?”

“The loser belongs to the winner for an entire day,” Fenris said.

“I … what? Maker’s Breath! You agreed to this, Broody?”

“I did.” Isabela saw the elf shrug.

“I had thought you’d given up being anyone’s slave,” the dwarf murmured, rubbing his fingertips against his forehead.

Fenris looked over at her and grinned wryly. “I’ve chosen to trust that Isabela will understand my past and respect my boundaries.”

“And I’ve done the same,” she replied. “We’re adults, and I’m pretty certain that we both know what we’re doing.”

“Well, it seems that the only way that we’ll actually know is after I turn over this piece of parchment and read the results.” Varric looked up at both of them and sighed. “Are you both ready?”

Isabela met the elf’s gaze again and smiled wryly at him. “What do you say, lovely? Should we throw the dice and see how they land? Are you ready to accept your fate?”

“Turn the page, Varric,” Fenris growled. “It’s too late to turn back now.”

The dwarf cleared his throat and lifted the parchment from the table. “According to my tallies, the results are …”


	4. And the Winner Is …

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But Hawke takes Isabela away for most of the day, and a day is a day, after all.

Isabela leaned her head back against the copper side of the large tub that she had had brought into her bedchamber in the Hanged Man. Bathing was such a process, with the container and all those pails of water that had to be carried from the kitchens, so it was a luxury that she only indulged in on special occasions. Of course, when she had tumbled into her bed the night before, she had expected that this day _would_ be a special occasion: she was going to enjoy the results of her victory in her first wager with Fenris. But just when the dawn was beginning to turn the skies a pale gray, Hawke had pushed his way into her room and told her that she was needed. Most of her day had been wasted rushing around the streets of Kirkwall, chasing after more of those jobs that he wanted to complete in order to fund his part of Varric’s brother’s trip into the Deep Roads. Fenris wasn’t anywhere to be found for some reason, and Hawke had been particularly bristly about the elf. She had dropped any of her attempts to learn more and simply concentrated on trotting along with Merrill and Anders, watching the stiff, unyielding spine in front of her. Whatever bug had crawled into his nickers, Hawke had been a foul companion that morning, and she had been perfectly happy to leave him behind at the hovel that the little elven mage occupied in the slums of Lowtown. At that point, a bath had seemed completely necessary, and she had made her request to the first barmaid that she had seen, knowing that it would be relayed to the tavern keeper and then the inn staff within moments.

The heat from the water rose up around her, causing the little hairs that had escaped the pile of her black hair to curl tightly against her cheeks and neck, and she idly wound one of the longer tresses around her finger. It was too late in the day for her to expect that Fenris would visit now, especially because they had made their arrangement for much earlier. And this had been her one day. She was nothing if not an honest gambler — at least when it came to paying up — and she didn’t expect the elf to stretch the rules, just because Hawke had dragged her away. Dropping her strand of hair, she closed her eyes and slipped more deeply into the water, inhaling the steam and the scent of the dried wildflowers that had been added to the bath.

There was nothing for her to do, so she let it all go. They would start their new month of competition tomorrow, and maybe she would be equally as successful the next time. As she had suspected all along, her knives were much quicker than the elf’s halberd, but still, their numbers had been incredibly close. Within barely a blade’s edge of each other. If she was going to continue to dominate their wagers, she was going to have to stay sharp, maybe even hone her skills a bit with some practice. Preparation always helped.

Someone knocked on her door, and she absentmindedly called for whomever it was to come in, remembering that she had sent one of the maids for another kettle of hot water. With her eyes still shut, she listened for the click of the metal on the stones near the fire, and murmured her thanks. In the next moment, the door to her suite swung shut.

“Hello, lovely,” she said, opening her eyes and looking over to where the snow-haired elf was leaning against the doorway between her sitting room and her bedchamber.

“Isabela,” he answered, his deep voice as steamy when he pronounced her name as the water that surrounded her. “I tried to keep our appointment for earlier in the day, but you had been called away.”

“Yes. Hawke seems to think that the funds for his Deep Roads excursion are more important than our wager.” She sighed and extended one of her long legs from the tub, pointing her toe and watching as the water slipped across her skin. “But I hadn’t really expected you. My day is nearly over, and I was very clear when I set the terms.”

Fenris crossed to the fireplace, bending down to pick up the kettle of hot water and stepping up to the side of the tub. Through the veil of her long, dark lashes, she watched him, deeply regretting that he hadn’t bothered to choose some pieces of clothing other than the spiky, black armor that she had always seen him wearing.

“Does your bath need warming?” he asked, moving the kettle toward the foot of the tub. She shook her head, stretching her other leg out of the water and flexing her muscles backward and forward. Fenris reached out with one hand as if he would take the foot in his fingers, but then he stopped, staring down at the hard metal of the gauntlets that were part of his armor. “I suppose that I’m not exactly dressed for rubbing a lady’s feet.”

“It’s all right, Fenris,” Isabela murmured. “Like I said, my day is nearly over, and I’m more than willing to simply finish my bath and then collapse into my bed. You may consider yourself excused from the first forfeit of our wagers.”

He seemed to study her face for a long moment before he replied. “There are many ways to measure a day,” he said, replacing the kettle beside the fire and then moving to the foot of the tub. From that angle, Isabela realized that he was getting a very tempting view of the curves of her full breasts which were buoyantly bobbing in the water like two harbor markers. She suddenly thought that the reluctance that she might have been sensing from him could have less to do with the conditions of their wager than she had thought. Raising one eyebrow at him, she silently waited for him to continue. “After all, a night watchman must think that his day is only beginning when the sun sinks behind the mountains. And our tavern keeper here, his work is only starting when the men begin to return from their duties around the city. I would suggest that a day can begin … whenever you say that it does.”

Shock and desire raced through her, sending tingles of anticipation over every inch of her skin until they all settled exactly in the best place for them. She studied him curiously, amazed that the elf wasn’t simply accepting her excuse for him and leaving her to find consolation in the cushioning of her empty bed. But he wasn’t leaving. That was the point, after all, wasn’t it?

“Lovely, I’m more than willing to accept your little loophole for our arrangement,” she purred, sliding her body back against the coppery sides of the tub until the water just barely covered the darker skin of her nipples. “But I’m also willing to stand by the letter of our bet. If you allow this change in our understanding of a ‘day,’ then it will be because you chose it. Not because I tricked you into it or forced you to accept it.”

“Of course,” Fenris replied, shifting on his feet in a way that implied to her that his armor was getting a little uncomfortable in certain places. Certain very appropriate places for what she had been hoping to do to the elf. “I agree completely.”

“Fine,” she said, sliding back down into the water. “In that case, I suggest that you take off that damned, spike-laden armor. If your modesty demands that you wear something, there might be a nightshirt that someone left behind with my clothing. Otherwise, I’ll be here.”

With that, she closed her eyes and waited, her ears sharply focused on the sounds that the elf made while he moved through the room. It seemed to take forever for him to strip his armor from his body — no wonder she never saw him in anything else if it was such a time-consuming process — and then she sensed more than heard him move to the head of the bathtub, right behind her. The next moment, she felt his fingers on one of her shoulders, stroking and kneading her flesh, and she moaned rapturously at the attention, scooting a little higher against the tub so that he could reach that spot … ooh, just there! … that never seemed soothed, no matter what she did for it. Inhaling deeply, she just caught a hint of the elf’s scent, woodsy and rugged, and she enjoyed the way it mingled with the wildflower aroma that surrounded her from the bath water.

“Would you like me to wash your hair, Isabela?” Fenris asked, his fingertips already threading through her tresses, searching for the pins that she had used to secure it off her neck.

“Oh, would you? I don’t know what it is about having someone else wash your hair, but it’s … ah …” She stopped, because his hands had grazed their way across her shoulders and down over the skin of her chest, easing their way into the water. Opening her eyes, she watched as his hands moved back, barely brushing the soft curves along the sides of her breasts, cupped to bring water above her head. The droplets slipped onto her scalp followed by another two handfuls, then more, until her hair was clinging to the sides of her face and drooping into her eyes. She was about to reach up to push the strands away when Fenris’s hands slipped across her cheeks, drawing her hair up into his fingers, massaging the curves of her head and down onto her neck. After a few moments, she felt him kneel beside the tub and reach for the little bar of soap that the serving girl had left behind. Plunging his fist into the water, he started a lather with that one hand and began mingling the foam with her hair.

It was heavenly, being pampered like this, and Isabela let herself float in the comfort and strength of Fenris’s caresses. His fingers twisted in her hair until it was clean and rinsed clear of all of the bubbles and then they moved on, bringing the soap and lather with them, to her shoulders again. Down her neck and across her chest. Until, finally, he cupped the soft flesh of each of her breasts in his hands, pressing his cheek against the side of her face at the same time and sighing softly in her ear.

“Are you warm enough, Isabela?” he asked, one of his hands trailing down her torso and toward the mysteries that were hidden by the water.

“Lovely, I’m afire,” she gasped. “But my bath is getting too tepid to comfort me.”

“Come out then,” he suggested. “There’s a warm bathing sheet waiting for you.”

He left her then, and she rose from the waters, wringing her hair briefly before she stepped onto the stones in front of the fireplace. In the next moment, Fenris brought the sheet and wrapped it around her, lingering tightly against her back while he brushed the edges of the fabric over her skin. His fingers stayed longest on her breasts and the soft curves of her buttocks, and he always returned to press himself and his hardness against her rear. But it wasn’t just the feel of his straining member that fired her so, it was the fact that he continued to caress her, his fingertips lingering on her skin, alternately tender and then demanding. The constant shifting of his touch kept her on edge, yearning for something that was waiting for her, if only he would lead her to find it.

When his fingertips finally closed around her nipples, she gasped, dropped the bathing sheet, and reached out to brace her hands on the mantlepiece above the fire. Everything was aflame — her skin, her core, her mind — all burning with the heat from the fireplace and the passion of the elf behind her. Stiffening her arms, she ground her buttocks against his hardness, begging without words for the next movement in their little dance.

And he gave it to her, dropping one hand from the breast that he had been clutching in nearly desperate need and sliding those fingers between her thighs. Gasping at the contact, she widened her stance a bit, allowing him enough room to slip his hand back and up, sliding between her nether lips, his fingers reaching and probing, always caressing, always driving her closer and closer to that pinnacle. A string of curses flew from her lips as the sensations flared and sizzled inside of her, and she slammed herself backward into him again.

“My shaft wants to be sheathed,” he growled behind her. “Open to me, Isabela.”

She widened her stance once again, dropping her upper body lower so that he would have a better angle for his motion. While one of his hands continued to caress her breast, she felt his drawers drop away from his hips and then the fire of his member as it slipped forward between her thighs, easing through the wetness that lingered from her bath and the moisture that had seeped out from the heat of her core. Another sliding thrust, and he was positioned. And then …

Isabela nearly screamed in pleasure at the power and depth of his penetration. After that, there was nothing at all to think about, because Fenris was pounding into her, each motion a punishing promise of what would come when she crossed that pinnacle. Clutching and pinching, his one hand continued to abuse the flesh of her breast, but it didn’t matter whether she would have bruises or not. All that she cared about was that every twist of her nipple between his fingertips sent another flaring burst of pleasure to join its fellows there between her thighs. His other hand returned to its play with the nub that drove her frenzy higher, and she struggled against him, slamming herself back to meet each thrust. Relentlessly, she strove with him, accepting the touch of his hands and the force of his need as they both spiraled higher and tighter, a tornado of passion burning on the hearth of her room in the Hanged Man.

The sudden burst of her climax left her gasping, and she battled to keep herself upright when her knees began to shake. In the next moment, Fenris had pulled away from her, and she nearly cried out at the loss of his hard heat inside of her, but he merely lifted her in his arms and carried her to her bed. Laying her gently on the coverlet, he climbed up beside her and then over her, positioning himself to sheathe his shaft once again and driving into her with all the energy and passion that he had used with her in front of the fire. Her body responded almost immediately, and she gasped in fulfillment once again moments before she heard him moan his own pleasure against her neck.

He slipped onto the bed beside her, and Isabela listened to the panting of their individual breaths as they slowed and then stilled. Propping herself up on one elbow, she ran her hand down his torso, purposely avoiding the trails of lyrium that marked his flesh. She looked up and met his eyes, smiling slyly at him.

“That was certainly a memorable beginning,” she said suggestively. “But what do you think we should do with the rest of my day?”


	5. Another Day, Another Wager

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The expedition into the Deep Roads is set, but Isabela would prefer sand and surf to stone and looming death.

“Seas, Fenris. This place is a wreck.” Isabela looked around the disarray of the Hightown mansion. Idly, she wondered whether the mess was the neglect after the building had been abandoned by its — and the elf’s — master, Danarius. Or had Fenris himself taken his frustration out on the remaining furnishings and decorations, simply because the magister had slipped through his fingers? She might ask — one day — if things continued as they were going.

Since they had established their wager, she and the snow-haired elf had also developed a strange kind of trust in each other. Already, they had shared some few months of competition and days of forfeit. Of course, they hadn’t been able to complete their wagers every month, and they had eagerly rolled their tallies into the next. Eventually, they had been able to call for Varric’s report, appearing together in his chambers in the Hanged Man for his reading of their totals.

Surprisingly — at least to Isabela — they had been fairly well matched throughout their wager, although she suspected that she was slightly ahead in their complete tallies. But there were more days to come. More wagers. More forfeits.

More pleasures.

Because, in the end, that was what they seemed to have determined that they should give to each other. It was as if that first day that Fenris had lost to her had set the tone for all of their interactions, and passion had become the driving force between them for their forfeits. Not that every conclusion to their wagers had involved carnal expressions of their most basic selves. One day, she had simply wanted someone who could hold his own drinking with her, had needed a person who could still have her back when she had allowed her brain to become a muzzy, nearly incoherent mess. And he had been there, matching her tankard for tankard, rising when injudicious drunkards decided that she could be theirs for the taking. She might not have needed him there, quite honestly, but she had been grateful that he had stood beside her, denying the preconceptions that the tavern’s patrons brought in with them from the docks and the mines and the shops.

“I’ve no need for it to be tidier,” he said, moving almost jerkily through the room and interrupting her thoughts. “It’s not as if I entertain here.”

“And we can all see why,” Isabela teased him. “I can’t believe that Hawke actually comes in here to talk to you.”

“He does,” the elf admitted, throwing himself into a chair and reaching for the bottle that was sitting in front of him. “Then again, he still lives with Gamlen in that hovel in Lowtown. Perhaps he envies me my Hightown mansion.”

“Or perhaps he just has things to say to you that he can’t say in front of everyone else. He does seem particular about some details …” She trailed off, struggling against the uncertainty that rose in her. It was so unlike her to be uncertain, but then again, she’d never been in the Deep Roads. And massive, dwarf-carved passageways of stone were everything that was opposite of the fresh air, salt spray, and bounding churn of the sea.

It was the furthest thing from sailing and piracy that she could imagine.

But the time had come. Hawke had managed to secure his buy-in to Bartrand’s expedition into some dwarven ruins that everyone was certain hadn’t already been raided and stripped of the valuables that had been left there. As a result, they were all preparing for their departure, gathering their weapons and armor, stowing what they wouldn’t need in reliable hiding places, and in general doing everything that they could to put a hopeful face on what was undoubtedly going to end up being a disaster.

Leagues under ground. Surrounded by stone. She shuddered.

“If you’re so offended by my personal squalor, Isabela,” the elf said, as if he misunderstood the shiver that had raced through her body, “what are you doing here?”

She shrugged and wandered over to perch on the edge of the table, one of her thigh-high-booted feet swinging back and forth. “If you can believe this, the Hanged Man was feeling much too cheery for me. I needed a blacker mood to comfort my doubts.”

“So, you thought of me.”

“Of course, I did, lovely,” Isabela replied, studying the elf openly. “There’s nothing like pitch-black, spiked armor to scream ‘dark night of the soul.’”

“I don’t know what you think I can do for you. And I’ll warn you, I’m in no frame of mind to bed you just to provide you with something else to think about. I’m afraid that the results would be … less than satisfying.” He glanced up at her for a brief moment and then looked away, staring across the room at something that she couldn’t see.

“I had considered that option,” she said, “but I’ll admit that I’m much too easily distracted at the moment, too. And it takes some of the fire out of our wager to just reduce it to some kind of pity tumble. No, if we’re going to fuck, I say it should be for sound, speculative reasons. Like the fact that you’ve lost to me. _Again._ But our arrangement is another reason that I’m here.”

Fenris looked at her and raised an eyebrow, inviting her to continue.

“Unfortunately, the end of the next month of our wager is going to happen while we’re rambling through the Deep Roads, which makes collecting a forfeit a little difficult.”

He frowned back at her. “I had though that we’d simply roll our totals into the next month. After all, we’ve done it before.”

“I’d considered that, too,” she admitted, bringing one hand up to play with the golden discs around her neck. “But it’s just as likely that there will be weeks after we return — _if_ we return — before the end of the second month. And I don’t know about you, but the moment I’m back in Kirkwall after this misadventure, I’m going to need to celebrate.”

In the silence that followed her backhanded suggestion, she let him study her face, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. She knew that he would find her fear, if he had the time to look for it, and she couldn’t bear the thought that he would know that she wasn’t ready for this mission. Varric had said something similar to her in the last few days, that he wasn’t prepared to be surrounded by so much stone, and maybe that was when all of her own insecurity had started. She’d tried to reason with herself, to convince her mind that it was foolish to try to anticipate what would happen to them. And as long as she expected the worst of every moment, she would be prepared, wouldn’t she?

For the first time since she had left her husband behind — dead and unmourned — she wasn’t completely certain. And the feeling hung over her like a fog in the Gallows.

Suddenly, Fenris rose from his chair and walked around the table to her side. Extending his hand, he said, “The day after we return from the Deep Roads …”

“ _If_ we return,” she muttered darkly.

Reaching out, the elf took her chin between his fingers and raised her head so that she was forced to meet his eyes. “ _When_ we return. I will come to your rooms in the Hanged Man and, whoever is the winner of our wager, we will celebrate.”

“And then we’ll start the next month’s wager the next day,” she added, smiling suggestively at him.

“I’ll bring you home, Isabela,” Fenris said, sliding his hand across her jawline and cupping her cheek. The bindings of the gauntlet of his armor were rough against her face, but she was overwhelmed by the sense of comfort and hope that this little gesture gave her.

And for a moment, she could almost convince herself that she believed him.


	6. Sweetening the Pot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just back from the Deep Roads, all Isabela wants is sleep. Until Fenris crawls into her bed ...

Isabela struggled to awaken, so tired down into the very marrow of her bones that she couldn’t be at all certain where she was or why she had opened her eyes. In the next moment, she recognized her bedchamber at the Hanged Man and sighed in gratitude at the familiar, rough-hewn walls and the layers of ancient dirt that would never be scrubbed away. Closing her eyes again, she told herself to go back to sleep, and her body agreed, causing her to yawn hugely.

When the bed sagged behind her, she almost didn’t notice, drifting as she was in that space between waking and dreaming. As a result, all she could think of to do was stutter out an incoherent question, turning toward the motion in a foggy haze.

“Be quiet, pirate,” Fenris growled behind her, moving close against her back and wrapping one arm around her waist. “I’ve come for my forfeit.”

She laughed softly, shifting so that she was molded more tightly against the lean strength of his naked body. “If you’re expecting this tumble to feel like more than doing a corpse, you should let me sleep.” Yawning again, she reaching out to entwine her fingers with his where they were resting just below the curve of her breasts. “Your day can start when I’m awake.”

“As it’s my day,” Fenris rumbled against her ear, “I believe that I’ll find a way to awaken you. A very pleasant way.”

“More pleasant to sleep …” she muttered, but then the elf’s fingertips reached out and just barely grazed the lower curve of her breast, and she wondered whether he mightn’t be right. When he continued his lazy, gentle exploration, she allowed it, drifting on the slowly rising tide of her passion, the sensations rippling across her skin like little wavelets lapping against the sands of a warm beach. Fenris seemed contented to simply caress her, his hands and lips traveling across her flesh, barely touching her. If she had been truly as exhausted as she had represented to him, she might have been able to ignore the feathery tracing of his hands and fall back into the depths of her dreams. But actually, it had been too long, all those weeks in the Deep Roads, practically living in everyone else’s pockets and then running for their lives, and her body was sizzling from even the slightest pressure that he applied to her skin. She lay beside him, feeling moored to him only through the hands that he applied to her, because he wasn’t actually pressed tightly against her back and bottom. But that gave him wider access to her curves, including the arch of her hip and the cleft between her buttocks. He explored all of her with lips and fingers, lingering on the side of her neck, and sending shivers along her spine.

Finally, she gave up on sleep and reached back to try to pull him closer against her rear, longing for the warmth and hardness of him against her. Instead of moving closer, however, he rolled away from her, onto his back in her bed.

Rising up on an elbow, she looked over at him. Waving one hand to indicate his body, he said, “Come along, Isabela. You’re the one who lost. Get to work.”

Smiling wickedly, she scooted beside him, sliding just close enough so that she could tease the nipple on this side if his body with her fingertips. She heard Fenris sigh and slipped nearer, reaching down with one hand to caress his thigh and then higher, to the hardness that rose up from the lyrium branded torso. Determinedly, she ignored its eager straining, working her fingers across his chest and thighs, lingering on his taut nipples, moving against his side so that she could tease them with her tongue. While she crept ever higher on his body, ever closer to his throat and face, she listened to his expressions of pleasure, every moan and gasp causing her heart to beat a little faster and the tingling in her body to increase.

She wasn’t used to this kind of tender, time-consuming coupling with him, but she could appreciate that he had chosen to awaken her passion slowly, especially considering how tired she had been when he had crawled in behind her. Their intimacy had been hard and fast in the past, but she had needed the time to shake off the lingering exhaustion of their escape from the Deep Roads. While her body still sizzled from the attentions he had paid to it, he also didn’t allow the fire to be banked. One of his hands moved in tender little circles against her torso, rising every once in a while to cup and knead at her breast. But for the most part, he let her lead their play, using his hands simply to ensure that she was still engaged in their exchanges and as excited for their culmination as it was obvious to her that he was.

Pulling herself onto his body, she slipped one leg between his, drawing herself up so that her breasts were crushed against his chest. His hands moved to help pull her closer, gripping one buttock and her hip, growling against the lips that she pressed into the side of his throat. She gasped at the strength of his fingers, the demand that she could feel in his touch, and she sank her teeth into the side of his neck.

“Vixen,” he pretended to complain, pressing his fingers into her rear. “I hadn’t thought it would take so long for you to mount your attack.”

Isabela gurgled and dragged the tip of her tongue along his collar bones to the other side of his throat. “You know perfectly well that I prefer the play to the actual execution. Although, you will admit, won’t you, that my finishing technique is impeccable?”

“I will not,” Fenris growled, digging his fingertips into her hips again. “Not until I’ve had a demonstration.”

“Easily arranged,” Isabela said, slipping across his torso and onto her knees. Sliding down his lean body, she positioned herself and then him, leading him home and pressing hard against him to be certain that his shaft was seated deeply inside of her. “Seas! What a mast you have there!” she gasped, grinding in circles against his hips.

And then she was beyond all thought, using his body as a tool for her own pleasure. Rocking and pressing against him, she drove her passion — and his — ever higher, tantalized even closer to the summit by the demanding response of his hips and the touch of his fingertips. Eventually, both of his hands encircled her breasts, pinching her nipples tightly and sending her over the crest of her passion, leaving her like so many bits of sea foam, drifting in her satisfaction, pressed against him in a different kind of exhaustion.

A satisfied exhaustion.

“Impeccable,” Fenris gasped, clearly having reached his own pinnacle. “Yes, you pirate, you are impeccable.”

She laughed and tipped herself backward, raising her head to look at him and study the even perfection of his features. A thought suddenly occurred to her, and she placed her elbows on his chest, levering herself upward so that she could gaze into his eyes.

“I’ve just realized,” she said slowly, “that in all our couplings, you’ve never actually kissed me. Not properly.”

“Nor have you kissed me, Isabela,” Fenris said in his deep, honey-toned voice. “I suppose it hadn’t seemed necessary before.”

“I suppose not,” she said. “And it is _your_ forfeit day, after all. So I wouldn’t want to suggest or do anything that wasn’t specifically what you wanted …”

He reached up, cupping the back of her head with one hand, using the strength of his well-trained muscles to flip her onto the mattress beside him. Bringing their mouths together, he kissed her, gently at first, then more deeply. More passionately. Their lips opened as if they had had the thought at the same moment, and their tongues began to dance together. Isabela felt her passion stir once again. This time, he was hard and fast with her, but it was equally as satisfying, perhaps even more so, because his lips seemed unwilling to let hers go, and he returned time and again to kiss her and allow his tongue to tangle with hers. When she crested her wave, he refused to allow her mouth to be released, accepting her groans and gasps of pleasure into himself. In the next moment, however, he broke their kiss and grunted his own completion into the darkness that surrounded them.

“Sweet,” she murmured, allowing him to settle into the blankets beside her and pull her onto his shoulder. “Such a sweet satisfaction.”


	7. Overextended

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabela watches Hawke's duel with the Arishok and curses all things Qunari ... and maybe male ...

Isabela stood in shock, her mind whirling to try to understand what was happening. She’d realized — oh, months ago — that she’d made a mistake this time. A huge mistake. Maybe the worst decision in the series of bad choices that she’d been making from the moment that she’d agreed to work with that smuggler. If she were wiser, she would have stowed away long before now, escaping to some distant port where Hawke and city guards and Qunari — seas take the Qunari — had never heard of her and wouldn’t even look twice at her.

All for a cursed book. A book!

There were things that she might allow herself to become obsessed about, but words on pieces of parchment wasn’t one of them. Unless they were the deed to her next ship — that was a piece of parchment worth her efforts.

But that project had been pushed to one side, replaced by that damned book, searching, retrieving, and then hiding it from those who also wanted to lay hands on it. The process had been hard enough, but the time afterward — that had been the worst.

In fact, it had wreaked its own havoc on her personal life. It had been months since she had been able to walk with Fenris into Varric’s sitting room and call for the tally of their deathblows. Months since she had been able to find that sweet release that was one of the few things that could keep her even-tempered, and when she had been able to find someone she would consider for a tumble, they had been quick, with near strangers, resulting in visits to Ander’s clinic in the Undercity for his medical and healing attentions. And his snide comments. Those had stopped her from continuing her sensual pursuits, if only to avoid his moral censure.

All because of that book.

The damned book.

And now, Hawke was fighting in single combat with the Arishok, the leader of the Qunari, because — even though she had brought the damned book back to him — their retribution was to take control of the entirety of Kirkwall and turn them all to the Qun. By force if necessary. Because only their ancient, highly structured religion was the true way for every being in Thedas to find their place in life.

Even worse, he was fighting the Arishok because she wasn’t worthy to defend herself. In the Qun, there were only so many roles that women could occupy. And warrior wasn’t one of them.

It rankled her, to have to watch while two men beat on each other as a result of something that she had started. Or concluded. She wasn’t exactly certain what she actually had done in all of this mess, except finally secure the damned book and return it under pressure to the members of the culture where it actually belonged.

And maybe she stole it. That might have been the real problem, but an assignment was an assignment.

It was supposed to have brought release from her obligations to the smuggler and maybe a ship. Instead it brought her pain and confusion and, quite frankly, terror. She’d spent her most recent months looking over her shoulders, worried that at any moment one of those horned demons would leave their gated enclosure near the docks and find her in the shadows of Lowtown. Not that they should have known that she had their precious book, but how was she to know for certain? At least now, she didn’t have to be paranoid any longer.

But angry. Seas! She was going to grip this anger tightly and stew in it for days to come.

Unworthy was she? Below the consideration of the waves-forsaken Arishok was she? Someone would see about that some day.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to be today. Today, she watched while that horned prig beat his giant sword against Hawke’s shield, and there was nothing that she could do. This was some kind of duel of honor, according to rules that only the Qunari knew, and Hawke had been caught in the middle, fighting for the freedom of the entire city, perhaps the entirety of the Free Marches.

And her freedom. Seas and sand! No one fought for her freedom except her.

“Be still, pirate,” Fenris whispered to her, coming up to her shoulder. She had been so captivated by the battle going on in Viscount’s Keep that she hadn’t even noticed the other members of their little band of warriors standing around the edges of the room. Merrill’s eyes were sparkling bright, and she was chewing on the edge of one of her thumbs. Isabela was certain that the elf mage wasn’t aware of the fact that the gem in the end of her staff was glowing, as if Hawke’s paramour was preparing some kind of spell to cast at the giant Qunari if her lover should fall. Aveline was frowning fiercely; Anders had stepped back into the shadows, as if the gathering of so many beings was too intimidating for him to face. Varric was watching the duel with a look of eager concern on his face; after all, Hawke seemed to have become a kind of meal ticket for the dwarven storyteller, who had already begun to embellish the adventures that they had had together, collecting coin from his amazed and enthusiastic audiences at an alarming rate.

“He’s doing my job,” Isabela grumbled under her breath. “I don’t need Hawke to protect me. I don’t need his help.”

“You don’t,” Fenris said in an iron tone which wasn’t at all comforting. “But you have no choice. This battle isn’t about you now, Isabela. Hawke is fighting for all of Thedas. To remind the Arishok — and the Qunari — that the people will not be so easily conquered and forced to accept the teaching of the Qun.”

“The Qun!” she exclaimed. “Curse their faith and curse their race! I wish I’d never heard of the tide-be-damned Qunari and their stupid book.”

Fenris looked over at her and raised one eyebrow. “I think, at this point, Isabela, we all wish that. You are the reason that the Qunari have remained in Kirkwall, after all. Aren’t you?”

Isabela loosed a string of curses, every foul expletive that she had learned from the coasts of Ferelden to the harbors of Antiva and the ports all along the shores of the Waking Sea. “I may have made the wrong choice with Castillon when I loosed his cargo of what he meant to be slaves, and I may have been too trusting that stealing that stupid book was going to be an easy way to square me with him. But I am able to admit my mistakes and rectify them. I am not a child or some Ferelden fishwife.”

“Be still, pirate,” he repeated, reaching out to take hold of her arm, as if he would restrain her if she chose to enter the fray herself. “Your life hangs in the balance, because if Hawke doesn’t win, you will be executed first. You won’t be given the option of converting to the Qun.”

Isabela met his eyes again and frowned. “You sound almost as if you respect their religion.”

The snow-crowned elf shook his head. “I admire it’s structure and its certainty. After living as a slave for so many years, knowing that there might be a place for me that meant that I would never serve another could be attractive. But the Qunari destroyed the Fog Warriors who sheltered me. And a rigid social structure is just another form of slavery.”

“Then you _do_ understand. And you know why _I_ should be fighting that battle out there.” She gestured at the meeting hall in the Viscount’s Keep, her eyes returning to the interplay of swords and shield, warrior and warrior. When Hawke stumbled around one of the pillars in the room, she gasped, holding her breath until she saw him move again, avoiding the headlong charge that the Arishok had directed toward him. Fenris’s fingers had also tightened around her wrist, the pressure of his fingertips sharp and deep against her flesh.

A punishment of sorts, for embroiling all of these people — Hawke and his warriors and the citizens of Kirkwall — in an impossible situation. Closing her hands into tight fists, she watched and waited.

The next moments would decide all. Life or death. Freedom or slavery. Determined by a flash of metal and a spray of blood.

She watched and hoped.


	8. A New Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabela seems to turn over a new leaf after Hawke's duel, but new leaves only have so many sides ...

Isabela nearly skipped along the alleyway leading toward the docks of Kirkwall, Fenris trailing behind her, carrying a large, cloth-covered basket in each hand. She had even managed to get him out of his spiky armor for the day, although he seemed less than comfortable to be out in the streets of the city without his metal skin and his wicked halberd. Looking over her shoulder, she smiled at him, hoping to encourage him through that simple gesture to keep up with her eager pace. He frowned at her and continued with his regular strides, not at all impressed by her need to hurry to some location that she hadn’t bothered to reveal to him. But he did follow, undeterred by her good humor and completely unwilling to share her joy in the moment.

She had won again, of course, and today was her day. Fenris was acting as her carter, carrying the things that she was determined to deliver before the sun had set beyond the massive, sorrowful statues that stood sentinel over the entrance to the harbor of Kirkwall. Turning a corner, she approached an unmarked doorway and pulled the portal open. Stepping into the building, she pressed her back against the wood and waited for the elf to cross into the dimness inside the room.

She looked around, finding the Chantry sister who was in charge of the mission here and approaching her with a brilliant smile on her face. “I’ve brought what I promised, Sister. Would you prefer to distribute them?”

The woman smiled at her and shook her head. “I’ve told the men that you were coming today, Captain. They’ve been looking forward to having you in their midst. The Queen of the Eastern Seas. They can’t stop telling me tales of your exploits.”

A sense of pleasure filled her, and she smiled softly. Moving deeper into the room, she crossed to the first cot and looked down at the withered body that was resting on top of the blankets. She stepped up to the man’s side, taking his hand and perching on the edge beside him. Leaning closer, she whispered into his ear, speaking of the sea and the salt and the spray that had been so much of her life aboard ship. His eyes focused, and he slowly turned his head toward her. A twisted smile spread across his lips, and he raised his other hand to enclose her one between both of his.

“I’ve brought some things,” she said, motioning for the snow-haired elf to come closer. “What do you need, matey? A blanket? An orange?” She smirked at him and dropped her voice to a low whisper. “I even have a bottle or two of rum, but don’t tell the sister that I brought it to you.”

The old man chuckled softly, asking for a piece of fruit, which she carefully peeled with one of her knives and left in his hand. While she watched, he raised it close to his face and inhaled deeply, simply holding it there and breathing the sweet, tangy scent. Smiling gently, she rose and moved on, stopping at every occupied bed to speak with its patient, pulling an item of food or comfort from the baskets that Fenris was carrying. When she had bestowed a gift on each of the men who were in the care of the Chantry sister, she walked to the door and called a cheerful farewell to the men, who raised their own “huzzah” to her. She walked back out into the sunshine of the Kirkwall afternoon and started on her way to the next location she planned to visit.

“Isabela!” Fenris called to her, moving up to her side and matching her pace at last. “What are you up to, vixen?”

She grinned wickedly at him. “I’ve turned over a new leaf, of course.”

He grunted and continued along with her. “Don’t lie to me. I certainly deserve better by now.”

Isabela stopped and looked over at him, planting her hands on her hips and studying him for a long moment. “We’ve won, and these poor souls haven’t. I simply want to share with them, the men who’ve been crewed and then cast aside.”

She saw that moment of surprise slip across his face, but just as quickly, the look disappeared. He studied her a moment longer and then said, “Sailors? They’ve been your crew?”

“No, not mine particularly,” she replied, starting down the alleyway again. “I’ve known some of them, crewed with some, fought with more. But none of them deserve what has happened to them. They’ve been abandoned because of injury or age without any way to heal themselves and not much more than their ability to fish to provide them with an income. I may not have my ship yet, but I have more than enough to be able to gift some men with even these small comforts to ease their lives. And so I shall.”

She saw him nod and then he was moving forward again, and she had to hurry after him. Throughout the rest of the afternoon, she traveled through the back alleys and shabby streets of Lowtown, stopping in hovels where former sailors had created homes with their wives and children or visiting the places where the wounded and dying congregated to care for each other. When she had finished, her baskets were empty, and she left them both with the last family that they had visited, telling them to use the containers as they would or get the best coin possible for them. Waving over her shoulder, she strutted out of the hovel, Fenris at her heels, her heart swelling in pride at her accomplishments this day.

They walked together in silence, the red-gold of the sunset bathing the stone walls and transmuting even the decay of Lowtown to a glittering ruby and creating deeper, ebony shadows. They were just about to pass one when she grabbed the elf’s arm, pulling him into the darkness of the joining of two walls and pushing him into the inky corner. In the next moment, she pressed her lips to his, eagerly thrusting her tongue into his mouth and trapping him against the hard, cold stone of the ancient wall. Reaching between their bodies, she gripped the front of his trousers, feeling him stirring under her hand even after such minimum contact. She heard him growl, and one of his hands came up to trap her head where it was so that their tongues could continue their dance with each other.

The shadows cloaked them, forgiving and firing their passions while they explored each other, kissing and kneading, their fingers and lips moving up and around. After the end of their misadventure with Hawke and the Arishok and another full month of their bet, she was grateful to be able to return to these simple expressions of her most carnal being. Her longing rose in her like a fever, burning through her flesh and driving her to ignore the noise of the harbor around them, ignore the blood red glow of the sun on the stones, ignore the risk of discovery.

Then he suddenly turned her, moving so that her back was against the corner and bringing his hands up to grip the soft flesh of her breasts. Nothing was gentle about their need for each other, there in the darkened corner, but she didn’t want sweet patience or tender caresses. Ripping her mouth away from his, she sank her teeth into the side of his throat, drawing his flesh toward her with a strong, sucking motion. He responded by grabbing one of her wrists in his own and pinning it against the shadow-painted wall. In the next moment, she moved, trying to entangle the fingers of her free hand in his white hair, but he anticipated her motion, trapping her in place with his hips. Whipping his own free hand up, he secured her second wrist also against the wall and kissed her again, the pressure of his mouth punishing against the softness of her lips.

But again, it didn’t matter. All she cared about was that the fire within her was burning hotly, flaring and fizzling with each thrust of the elf’s hips against hers and the determined probing of his tongue. Through the steady strength of his lean muscles, he was able to bring both of her arms above her head, gripping her hands in one of his so that he could bring the other down to pull at her bodice. With a few hard tugs, he exposed her nipple on one side, leaning down to take it between his teeth to make it harder and then suckling it with eager pulls. She drove her hips forward against his, writhing against the draw of his lips and the grasp of his fingertips. His mouth continued its demanding work while he moved his other hand up to take the first’s place. With her arms trapped once again, he yanked the other half of her bodice away, allowing the cool, misty air of the harbor to curl around the curves of her breasts, causing the nipple that wasn’t in his mouth to tighten and tingle. She arched away from the wall while Fenris kissed his way across her bosom, moving to the newly exposed nipple and beginning the same suckling treatment to it.

“Harder,” she groaned when his lips momentarily lifted from her chest. “Seas, elf. Take me now.”

And he did. Reaching under the short bodice tunic that she wore, he used the strength of his fingers alone to tear one side seam on the panties beneath the cloth. Tugging the fabric away, he quickly undid the flap of his own soft trousers, lunging forward to impale her. She squealed in pleasure as he seated himself and began to rock against her, his hands moving from her breasts to cup and lift her buttocks so that she could wrap her legs around his waist. Coiling against him, she strained forward, riding together with him in the gathering twilight until they crested the wave of their passion together, shattering and shivering while the pleasures coursed through her. She gasped and moaned, wrapping her arms around his neck and dropping her forehead against the side of his skull, her breath shuddering into her body while she waited for her heartbeat to return to normal.

Fenris’s lips trailed gently across her face, his breath also slowing and stilling. When she was quieter, he allowed her feet to return to the hard stone paving of Kirkwall’s streets. Tucking her ruined panties into the top of one of her boots, she reached out and pushed the white hair out of his eyes.

“Lovely,” she whispered, pressing her lips to his forehead. “Simply lovely.”


	9. A Turn of the Cards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabela isn't certain why she's been invited to Fenris's mansion, but rags and buckets are a bad sign, aren't they?

Isabela strutted through the entry to Fenris’s continually dilapidated mansion in Hightown, but she admitted to herself that she’d gotten used to the place. Not that she actually visited him in his home very often, and they had never coupled on that bed he slept on — in the same room where he drank and entertained. But she had visited in the past, with or without Hawke, for brief moments only, before she had led the elf back out the door and into Lowtown and to the Hanged Man. No matter what, they had never lingered here, and she had always been a little overwhelmed by the feeling that this mansion was more like a prison, especially because it had in some strange way belonged to the elf’s former master. And Fenris was as rich as the rest of their little group now, so the reasons that he remained in this wreck were far beyond her ability to understand them.

She started up the staircase, the left side, which she always used when she was alone — while any time that she accompanied Hawke, he always used the right. It gave her a perverse kind of pleasure to purposefully make a different choice than the leader of their band of warriors, showing herself that, once again, she wouldn’t be ruled by the demands or expectations of any man. Strolling through the doorway to the room where Fenris usually sat drinking, she looked around and found him just where she expected. At least it was too early in the day for him to have slipped too deeply into the depths of his bottle.

And she was right. In fact, the elf was sitting in his usual seat with a look on his face that made her stop dead in her tracks. A look of anticipation. A look of happiness. A look of pleasure.

A look that made her want to turn on her booted heel and walk right back out the door.

But it was his forfeit. He had won the last round of their wagers, although it had been more than a a few months since they had started this round. But she had turned up at the appointed hour, a kind of eager anticipation bubbling through her body. After all, she only had their past interactions to go by, and those had been very pleasurable, exciting in fact. And satisfying. That had been the best of all, in the end, that the elf could bring her crashing to completion like a wave pounding against a rocky shore.

Isabela was certainly looking forward to that. As long as that was what Fenris wanted from her today.

Something told her that she ought to expect something else.

Maybe it was the pile of cloths and the bucket. Or the swab that she recognized from her sailors applying into the deck of her ship — when she had a ship. Looking over at the snow-haired elf, she frowned deeply.

“Good morning, lovely,” she said slowly. “Are you having maids in at last?”

Fenris shook his head. “It’s my forfeit. And I had thought that, since you seem so offended by my squalor, you could take care of it for me.”

“Even after I had been sold to my husband,” she replied, the anger she was feeling dripping into every word, “I didn’t clean for him. In fact, I only warmed his bed when he wouldn’t give me any other choice. We could consider this matter much the same, if you’d prefer.”

“Or I could spread it all around the docks that you welched on our bet, Isabela. How ever will you obtain a ship from those easy marks if none of them will play cards with you?”

Isabela clenched her fists tightly together and looked away from the elf, toward the smooth stone of the wall beyond his shoulder. The two prongs of her anger warred with each other — the pride in her reputation as a successful but fair gambler and her own need to be more than just a … a thing for any man to use as he would. She chose. She led. She left when she was ready, which was usually the moment the act was completed.

Except in this case. Over the years, she and Fenris had developed an understanding of each other’s timing and aggression that had helped them both in the bedroom and on the battlefield. These days, she could move almost without thinking, sensing where the elf and his huge halberd were and what his next move would be maybe even before he had thought of it. It made them a deadly team when they were out with Hawke in the streets of Kirkwall, and it made their coupling one of the most satisfying entanglements that she had ever allowed herself to enter.

But until she had actually secured a ship, her reputation as a fair gambler was everything. That was one thing that she had to protect, no matter what. Meeting the elf’s golden eyes again, she nodded. “I’ll do your little bits of housework, but I’m warning you that I won’t like it at all. And I’ll find my own way of getting my revenge for this indignity, so you had best be prepared.”

Fenris simply shrugged. “I’ll accept what comes to me, and if that’s your anger, at least my living space will be neater. Oh, and by the way, I got this for you to wear.”

A large ball of cloth sailed toward her, and she reflexively gripped it in her hand. Pulling it into a more normal shape, she stared down at the kind of dress that a Ferelden housewife would wear, with a high neck and absolutely no shape. A sack of a garment, meant to cover every curve and reduce the wearer to the same blandness as every other woman in any village on the other side of the Waking Sea.

“You’re kidding, right?” she asked him. “I certainly don’t need this frumpy costume in order to …” She stopped herself when she thought about the words that she had just said. A costume. A frumpy costume. Could the elf be playing some kind of game with her that would, in the end, provide her with the pleasure that she had been expecting during her long walk to Hightown? Was he teasing her with chores and ugly clothing because he was getting some kind of sexual thrill from it?

Maybe, in the end, she should simply trust him. It was his forfeit, after all, and she was supposed to be pleasing him. In the end, she might find her own satisfaction, too.

“Okay, lovely,” she said. “I’m willing to play your day your way. But I’m warning you at the outset: I’m no man’s servant. But I also won’t ever welch on a bet.”

“I suppose you should get changed then,” Fenris said, walking toward the door that led to the massive entryway. “If you need a hand, just let me know.”

She watched him leave and then huffed her breath out, letting some of her anger vent into the room. Stepping toward the long table that canted at a strange angle away from the wall, she dropped her two long, wicked-looking daggers onto the surface, then slipped out of the brace and laid that beside the long blades. In the next moment, she perched on the edge of the table and started tugging at her boots, not at all certain that they were necessary for cleaning or that the folded-down tops were going to fit under the straight, boring lines of the sack of a dress that he had gotten for her. She stripped down to her panties and started pulling the fabric over her head.

Until it stuck.

“Seas and stars,” she cursed, wriggling with the material until she managed to get it to her waist. She was still struggling with the dress when she looked up and saw the elf staring at her from the doorway. “Your costume was obviously made for some Ferelden fishwife, not a woman with actual curves in all the right places.”

“I can help with that,” he replied, stepping up to the table and retrieving one of her knives. Coming closer, he placed the tip of the dagger at the little notch at the base of her throat, and her eyes widened in surprise. He reached out with his other hand and pulled the cloth away from her body, slicing bodice down to a point about in the middle of her chest. Her breasts, relieved from the confining compression of the fabric, sighed gratefully into the additional space that they had been given. Lowering the knife to her side, he indicated the strap of her panties with the tip. “You’re not going to need these, of course, so you should take them off. Unless you would prefer for me to …”

“You’ve already destroyed one pair that I owned,” Isabela replied, “and I’m no hand with a needle. None of the barmaids would help me repair them, either, so I only have a limited supply.”

“Their usefulness is probably overrated in your case, pirate,” the elf said, reaching for the crumpled material near her hip. “I’ll give you a little more room to ease your motion.” Sliding the blade’s edge along the side seam, he separated the pieces of cloth from each other and watched while they slithered toward the floor. Because the other side had more give, the entire hem of the dress slid to just above the tops of her feet, and she watched while he stepped around to her other side and split that seam, too. With the Ferelden dress nearly in tatters, she looked over at him and smiling slyly.

“Get to work then,” Fenris replied, tossing her dagger onto the table and returning to the doorway. “I have things to do in another part of the mansion.”

And he was gone. Turning her attention back to the room, Isabela shrugged and tried to approach the task that the elf had given her with as much good humor as she could muster, which wasn’t much at all, to be honest. She ignored the swab and the bucket, choosing instead to pick up one of the rags and move the layers of dust from side to side. By bumping it with her hips, she managed to get the table straightened out, and she carefully tipped all of the chairs up onto their legs and arranged them in what seemed to be a reasonable fashion around the long wooden planks.

She had bent over to dust between the upright pieces that made up the back of one of the chairs when she felt a hand between her shoulders. When she tried to raise her body, she was held in place, and she felt another hand move to the rent seam on one side of her horrible dress. Strong, slender fingers moved under the cloth and across the curve of her bottom, seeking the warmth and wet at the joining of her thighs, and she sighed in pleasure when the tip of one of those fingers played with her, stroking and circling her tenderest flesh until his hands had ignited a fire within her.

Then, just as suddenly, he stopped. Looking over her shoulder, she tried to meet the snow-haired elf’s eyes, but he was pulling away.

But not before he had slapped his open palm sharply against her bottom. “Back to work,” he said and left the room.

Fenris went on like this, entering the room when she was in a compromising position and using the great strength of his well-trained muscles to hold her there while he caressed her and teased her. His hands went where they would — pressing eagerly into her breasts, trailing along the curves of her thighs, lingering on the swell of her buttocks. But just when she thought that he would free his shaft and sheathe himself, he would swat her on the bottom and walk away. It was a delicious kind of torture, shimmering there on the edge, just warm enough to want him to continue, but knowing that she was still far from cresting that final wave and breaking into pieces against the shore.

But damn him! The ebb of his caresses was making her crazy.

It seemed to her that his teasing went on for hours, but she knew that it actually wasn’t that long. Finally, she had decided that she had had enough, that she would somehow turn out of his hold on her and take what she wanted from him. Damn his forfeit day. And damn his little game.

She had moved to the corner where his bed was sitting at another strange angle, and she stared down at it, wondering — when everything else in the entire mansion was eternally in shambles — why his bed should be so neatly made. Sagging down onto the coverlet, she dropped her rag onto the floor and then pushed across the mattress until her back was against the headboard. Draping her arms along the wood, she pressed herself back against the pillows, settling her feet flat, spread as wide as she could comfortably maintain with her knees bent in front of her. She sat there, waiting for the elf to return, determined to take control of the situation before she completely lost her mind to his little game.

“I see you’ve finally given up,” Fenris said from where he was leaning one shoulder against the corner beside the table. “I had wondered how long it would take you to demand your due, even though it is my forfeit day. If I had been a wiser man, I might have laid a bet.”

She smiled at him. “You’re lucky that I lasted this long, lovely. Any other man would have had a dagger sticking out of his … well, out of a part of his body that I’m hoping you’re actually going use on me today.”

The elf smiled slightly. “That had been my plan, Isabela. I was just waiting for the moment when I knew you were ready. And yes, I’m getting the message, loud and clear.”

“I’ll even let you keep the spikes,” she purred, gripping the top of the bed frame so hard that her fingernails dug into the wood. “Just get in this bed before I decide that nothing you will do to me can make up for the torture you’ve put me through.”

He continued to consider her from where he was leaning against the wall, and she reached down to pull the fabric of the hideous Ferelden dress away from between her thighs. His words stopped her.

“Be still, pirate,” he growled deep in his throat. Just the tone of his voice caused a shiver of anticipation to race through her, and she looked over at him expectantly. “Keep your hands exactly where they are, and don’t remove them.”

Looping her arms back across the wood of the headboard, she watched while he crossed the room to the side of the bed, picking up the long sword that was leaning against it and moving it to the far wall. From there, he turned to consider her, his hands going to the buckles of his armor and slowly beginning to take each piece off and lay it in an organized fashion around the weapon. She watched for a minute or two, enjoying the sight, the slow revelation of his creamy skin and the silver-white branding of lyrium in his skin. For the most part, their coupling had taken place in the shadows or the darkness that embraced her bed in the Hanged Man. She rarely had had the luxury of watching him while he undressed or studied the intricate curves of his lyruim tracings — or the hard angles of his body.

But it was such a process involving so many straps and buckles. And as much as he was a beautiful piece to look at, she needed his touch to bring the waves of her passion cresting higher and higher. She wriggled her hips on the coverlet, trying to find some kind of position that would apply pressure where she needed it, longing to be able to release her grip on the headboard and actually start the wavelets that Fenris could then crest and crash to completion.

“Could you hurry?” she whined, lifting her bottom eagerly from the bedding. “I’m burning for you, lovely, and I don’t want this fire to bank.”

“But I’m enjoying my view,” Fenris said, and Isabela nearly screamed in frustration when his hands stilled on the strap of one leg guard and simply stared at her. “As luscious as your body has always been in the darkness of your bed …”

“Or convenient alleyways,” she added, a thrill rushing through her at the memory of their hurried coupling.

“… I find that I’m entranced by the image of you.” She was about to object, saying that she had never suspected that he had a penchant for fishwives, when he stepped out of his last piece of armor and over to the side of the bed in his drawers alone. The fiery focus of his gaze made her stop, and she watched while his eyes traveled across her body. “I’ve had your breasts in my hands and under my lips, but until this moment, I haven’t truly appreciated how they look when they are straining away from your body, when your nipples are taut and rising up like the peaks of a hidden shoal along the coast …”

Isabela gasped. She’d never experienced a moment like this before, when her body flared passionately simply from the words that a man had spoken to her. Fenris continued, perching on the edge of the bed, his fingertips hovering just above her skin while he described his reactions to all of her. Gripping her hands around the top of the headboard, she allowed her eyes to slide closed, focused exclusively on his words and the purring heat of his voice. The combination of his words and the tone sent ripples of pleasure through her, and she found wave after wave of anticipation racing to the fire between her thighs.

When he finally touched her, she nearly leapt from the bed, her eyes flying open at the cold caress of metal on her skin. Looking down, she saw a small knife gliding over her body, slipping easily through the rough material of her dress. Like a sigh, she felt the fabric fall away, and her breasts eased out of the material, the cool air of Fenris’s mansion making her nipples tighten even more. With swift strokes, the elf sliced the sleeves, too, until she was perched in a pool of cloth, her arms still draped over the headboard.

Fenris reached out and slid one hand from the tips of her toes and up to place where her leg joined to her body. Drawing in a shuddering breath, she forced herself to remain perfectly still, longing for his touch where she needed it, but accepting the slow tracing of his fingers across her abdomen and over to the other leg. She closed her eyes again and lingered in the darkness and the shimmering of her skin. When she felt the mattress sag, she ignored the sensation, washing in and out on the thrilling touch of the elf’s hands.

And then his lips began to caress her abdomen, moving lower to the joining of her thighs. When his tongue began to explore the sweetness that he found there, she fought to keep herself still, reveling in the surging heat that washed through her, rushing across her skin in ripples. She sighed and moaned, digging her fingertips into the wood of the headboard and pressing upward into the stroke of his tongue.

With his mouth alone, he brought her cresting over the top of the wave of her passion, and she was so beyond her ability to control herself that she shouted his name into the silence of the mansion around them. Still trembling from her completion, she tore herself away from the headboard, flipping him onto his back and stripping his drawers from his hips with barely a thought of what she was doing. In the next moment, she mounted and drove onto him, his shaft hard and deep within her, his fingers grasping at her body. Thrusting and circling her hips, she brought herself to completion again and again, not at all certain if or when he had achieved his own fulfillment. Then again, she didn’t care. After the torment that he had put her through, she was determined to use him for her own pleasure, and when she was finally finished, she threw herself down onto the bed beside him, gasping for air and trying to still the thundering of her heart.

“I believe,” he muttered beside her, his own breath rapid and shallow, “that I’ve overestimated your effectiveness as a maid.”

Isabela laughed and stretched her arms up over her head. “Thank wind and waves for that. But shall we continue our wager?”

“By all means,” he replied, flipping over onto his stomach beside her and slipping one arm across her waist. “I find that I still have uses for you after all, even if they’re not for cleaning.”

“Or cooking,” Isabela replied. “Bedding’s what I do best. Besides gambling. And look where that’s gotten me now.”


	10. Raking in the Pot

Isabela stood on the deck of her ship, one hand gripping the railing, her eyes eagerly scanning the harbor. Despite the chaos that continued to burn through Kirkwall, she was determine to make her escape.

After all, Hawke had made his stand, dragging her and the rest of their friends into battle to protect the mages and to confront the madness of the leader of the templars. In the process, they had ripped the whole of Thedas apart. At least, that was the way she saw it. And the only safe place that she could imagine now was the sea.

One of the final crates of supplies was lifted by rope and tackle and swung up from the dock and over the opening to the hold of the ship. In the past, she might have been in the midst of such vital preparations, but today, it was more important to her to be certain that the enormous chain that could be lifted between the Twins of Kirkwall, the statues that guarded the entrance to the harbor, stayed below the waters where it belonged. As long as it was submerged, she was free to take her ship out onto the Waking Sea and — finally — leave the land behind.

The shouts of her crew members reassured her, and she leaned onto both of her hands, allowing the breeze that was coming off of the sea to cool her skin and ruffle her hair. Closing her eyes, she pressed forward into the wind, feeling herself thrill at the thought of her sails catching the gust, of the tilt and plunge of the wood beneath her feet.

Just a moment more. A moment or two.

“Ahoy the ship!” she heard a voice calling from the dock.

Opening her eyes, she turned and saw Fenris standing at the end of the gangplank, his eyes raking across the lean lines of her acquisition. Rolling with the gentle rise and fall of the deck, she crossed to the staircase and then walked to the long piece of wood, crossing back to the dock in Lowtown.

He watched her come, crossing his arms on his chest and the black metal of his armor. Stopping in front of him, she planted her hands on her hips and grinned at him.

“I’m so happy that you’ve come to see me off,” Isabela said. “But I hadn’t expected you, of course. I thought we said our good-byes last night.”

Fenris looked at her through the fall of his snow-colored hair. “I wasn’t certain that we’d said everything to each other that needed to be said. We were … occupied.”

She smiled lopsidedly. “So we said everything that needed to be said. Except …” She frowned, looking over his shoulder to the smoky trails that lingered above the wreckage of Kirkwall. Turning awkwardly, she looked back at her ship, feeling the uncertainty settle inside of her stomach while she studied the long, wooden lines and the inherent speed in her design. Sighing deeply, she turned back to the elf and let the fear bubble within her again. “Except that I didn’t ask whether you might come with me. Sail the seas; be a raider. Sleep in the captain’s quarters and have a tumble with her when she’ll allow it.”

Fenris dropped his gaze to the planks between them, and Isabela could see his hands tighten on his arms in convulsive little pulses. Running the tip of her tongue over her lower lip, she realized how much she was going to miss those hands, those fingers, those lips, that … other part. But she didn’t have a choice now. It was time to go. No matter how he responded.

Fenris finally lifted his head and met her eyes. “You tempt me in more ways than you can imagine, pirate,” he admitted slowly. “But Thedas is going to tear itself apart, and there will be more mages making unforgivable mistakes than ever before.”

“And you would be less likely to find mages whose hearts needed to be exploded in their chests on the seas?”

He laughed shortly. “You understand then. And I fear, most honestly, Isabela, that eventually we would tire of each other, and then where exactly would you leave me?”

“Oh, I always drop the men I’ve become tired of over the side,” she teased. “But in your case, I can promise you that I’d figure out how close to shore we were first.”

Reaching out, he took hold of her arm and stepped a little closer to her. “Then I believe we’re of the same mind. I’ve never maintained the kind of relationship we have had for so many years, and I appreciate everything that I’ve shared with you. And you with me.”

Isabela swallowed hard and nodded her head. Taking another step toward him, she reached up to twine her one free arm around his neck. He responded by dropping his hold, embracing her waist, and bringing his lips down on hers in a passion-filled kiss. Straining closer to him, she opened her mouth to his exploration, deepening the contact between them and crushing her breasts against his chest. When his fingertips dug into the flesh of her buttocks, she let him lift her and, despite the metallic bite of his armor, wrapped her legs around his waist.

She could hear the sailors on her ship and along the docks calling in appreciation of their embrace, but she ignored them. There was nothing she wanted to hear except the thunderous rush of her blood through her veins, the subtle groans that the elf let escape from somewhere deep within himself. This moment was all she wanted, because the next meant that he would be leaving her, walking back into the fire-framed destruction of the city. Or she would sail away. Either seemed likely, and neither was going to ease the sensation of loss that she could feel lurking in the shadows of her mind. 

She tore her lips away from his and leaned forward so that she could stare over Fenris’s shoulder into the smoke that snaked through the city streets toward the docks. “I have to go,” she whispered. “If I linger, I’m risking not being able to leave at all.”

“I know,” the elf replied, letting her legs slip back down to support her. “Think of me fondly, Isabela. And if I hear rumors that you’re nearby, I’ll seek you out.”

“That’s all I could ask for, Lovely,” Isabela replied, leaning forward to press one last, almost chaste kiss to his lips. “Be safe. I will miss you.”

Turning on her heel, she walked back to her ship and up the stairs to the wheel. Calling out her orders, she watched while the gangplank was drawn back on board, and the crew moved to release the ropes that bound the sails tightly in place. The wind, as fickle as always, belled the sheets back toward Kirkwall, but she ignored the motion. Instead, she called out for the men to tack away from the dock while she gripped the wheel tightly in her hands and guided her ship toward the deeper channel between the Twins.

When she was certain that the ship was under way, she gave control over to her helmsman and walked back to the rear railing. Looking toward the dock, she realized that she could still see the dark shape of the elf in his spiky armor standing where she had left him. Swallowing hard, she raised her hand in a final salute to him and accepted the gesture that he sent back toward her.

Then she turned and took in a deep breath. She felt the cool, salty tang of the sea air fill her, and all her doubts melted away.

Maybe not her regrets, but she could live with them.

“Full sail!” she called, crossing her arms under her breasts. “Come along, boys. Let’s go home!”


End file.
